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48 free Leave it to Beaver trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free Leave It to Beaver trivia questions with answers. Leave It to Beaver ran for six seasons and 234 episodes between 1957 and 1963, never cracked the Nielsen top 30, and then became one of the most rerun sitcoms ever made. This quiz covers the whole story: the pilot with a different Ward and Wally, the toilet tank the censors nearly banned, why June wore pearls, where the Cleavers lived, and what happened to Beaver, Wally, Eddie and Lumpy in the 1980s revival. It starts with questions anyone who grew up on the reruns can answer (Beaver's real name, the town, the older brother) and works up to production history and cast trivia that only devoted fans know: which cast member became a police officer, which one exhibited sculpture at the Louvre, and which one auditioned in a Cub Scout uniform. It is free to use for classic-TV trivia nights. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, its spin-offs and its cast, and each question carries its source. No fan-forum guesses, no recycled listicle errors.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Beaver Cleaver's real first name?
Theodore
The show's official explanation is that baby Wally mispronounced it as 'Tweedor', which became 'Beaver'.
Q 02In what fictional town do the Cleavers live?
Mayfield
The Cleavers live in Mayfield, a fictional suburban town whose state is never named; the boys attend the local grammar school and then Mayfield High.
Q 03Barbara Billingsley played which member of the family?
June Cleaver
Barbara Billingsley played June Cleaver, the pearl-wearing mother of the family, for the show's entire 1957-63 run on both networks.
Q 04What was Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward, off screen when he was not acting?
A Methodist lay minister
A Methodist lay minister off screen, Hugh Beaumont earned a Master of Theology from the University of Southern California in 1946 and also directed a number of episodes.
Q 05Which actor played Wally Cleaver?
Tony Dow
Tony Dow played the Cleavers' older son for the full 1957-63 run; a Junior Olympics diving champion, he won the part with almost no acting experience.
Q 06Which two-faced friend of Wally's is polite to adults and a wise guy to everyone else?
Eddie Haskell
Eddie Haskell is the smarmy pal who flatters the Cleaver parents and needles everyone else; the name became American shorthand for an insincere charmer.
Q 07What is the real first name of Wally's oversized pal 'Lumpy' Rutherford?
Clarence
Lumpy Rutherford's real first name is Clarence; Frank Bank played him, and Richard Deacon played his pompous father Fred, Ward's co-worker.
Q 08On which network did the show premiere in October 1957, before being dropped after one season?
CBS
The show premiered on CBS on October 4, 1957, and CBS dropped it after one season; ABC picked it up and ran it five more years, through June 1963.
Q 09How many episodes of the original series were made after the pilot?
234
The original series ran 234 episodes, six seasons of 39 each from 1957 to 1963, not counting the pilot; a 39-episode season was standard then.
Q 10Who created the series?
Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher
Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, longtime Amos 'n' Andy writers, created the series and based many plots on their own children; Connelly said the 'Beaver' nickname came from a wartime shipmate.
Q 11What was the title of the 1957 pilot episode?
It's a Small World
The pilot was titled 'It's a Small World' and aired in April 1957 as an episode of the anthology series Heinz Studio 57, six months before the show itself premiered.
Q 12Which future Beaver character was played by a different actor, Paul Sullivan, in the pilot?
Wally
Ward was also recast; Max Showalter, billed as Casey Adams, played him in the pilot before Hugh Beaumont took over.
Q 13In the taboo-breaking toilet episode 'Captain Jack', what had the boys hidden in the tank?
An alligator
An alligator, a mail-order baby one the boys kept in the toilet tank, was the hidden pet; network censors allowed the tank on screen but never the bowl.
Q 21Which of these actresses played Beaver's teacher Miss Landers?
Sue Randall
Sue Randall played Miss Landers, Beaver's patient teacher from season two onward; Diane Brewster had been his season-one teacher, Miss Canfield.
Q 22What was the title of the final episode, broadcast on June 20, 1963?
Family Scrapbook
'Family Scrapbook' closed the series on June 20, 1963, with the Cleavers leafing through old photographs as the show replayed scenes from earlier episodes.
Q 23What did young Jerry Mathers wear to his Leave It to Beaver audition?
A Cub Scout uniform
Q 14What was the Cleavers' new address after they moved house in the third season?
211 Pine Street
From the third season onward the Cleavers lived at 211 Pine Street, having spent the first two seasons at 485 Mapleton Drive.
Q 15What is the title of the show's theme music?
The Toy Parade
The theme is 'The Toy Parade', a march composed by David Kahn, Melvyn Leonard and Mort Greene and rearranged several times over the six seasons.
Q 16Why did the actress who played June start wearing her trademark pearl necklace on the show?
To hide a hollow in her neck
To hide a hollow in her neck, Barbara Billingsley said, she wore pearls on camera; she later added high heels as her on-screen sons grew taller than her.
Q 17How well did the show do in the Nielsen ratings during its original six-season run?
It never broke into the top 30
It never broke into the top 30 of the Nielsen rankings in any of its six original seasons; its huge following was built in syndicated reruns that began in the 1960s.
Q 18In the first season, how old was Beaver and what year of school was he in?
Seven, second grade
Seven, second grade: that was Beaver's age and class in the first season, when Miss Canfield was his teacher; the boys then aged roughly in real time over six seasons.
Q 19Which of Beaver's friends is always seen munching an apple in the early seasons?
Larry Mondello
Larry Mondello, played by Rusty Stevens, is the plump pal forever munching an apple; he disappeared from the show partway through the run, after which Gilbert Bates became Beaver's chief sidekick.
Q 20Which classmate is Beaver's nemesis at school?
Judy Hensler
Judy Hensler, played by Jeri Weil, is the prissy tattletale who relishes getting Beaver in trouble in the early seasons; Mary Ellen Rogers and Julie Foster were the older brother's girlfriends.
A Cub Scout uniform, worn because he wanted to get to his den meeting afterward, charmed the producers into casting Jerry Mathers; he later became the first child actor to get a share of a show's merchandising revenue.
Q 24Before Beaver, Jerry Mathers appeared as a boy who finds a body in which Alfred Hitchcock film?
The Trouble with Harry
The Trouble with Harry (1955) cast Jerry Mathers as Arnie, the little boy who finds Harry's corpse in the woods; Shirley MacLaine, in her film debut, played his mother.
Q 25A persistent 1960s rumor claimed Jerry Mathers had been killed where?
In Vietnam
In Vietnam, the rumor went, Mathers had died in combat; a serviceman with a similar name had been killed there, and Mathers, who served stateside in the Air National Guard, spent years denying it.
Q 26In 2007 Jerry Mathers made his Broadway debut as Wilbur Turnblad in which musical?
Hairspray
Hairspray gave Jerry Mathers his Broadway debut in 2007 as Wilbur Turnblad, Tracy's joke-shop-owning father; he was nearly sixty, half a century after first playing Beaver.
Q 27What career did Ken Osmond take up after being typecast by his role as Wally's smarmy friend?
Police officer
Police officer was his second career: Ken Osmond joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1970, and in 1980 he was shot on duty, two bullets stopped by his vest and a third ricocheting off his belt buckle.
Q 28A widely reported 1970s rumor claimed Ken Osmond had grown up to become which rock star?
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper was the rock star the 1970s rumor turned him into; the shock rocker, born Vincent Furnier in Detroit, had no connection to the show, and Osmond spent years denying it.
Q 29In the 1980s revival, who played the two sons of the boys' smarmy old friend?
Ken Osmond's own children
Ken Osmond's own children, Eric and Christian Osmond, played the two boys, Freddie and Bomber, in the 1980s revival series.
Q 30Which sci-fi series did the actor who played Beaver's older brother later direct episodes of?
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 was one of the series he directed in the 1990s; he also directed episodes of Coach and Harry and the Hendersons.